Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Those of you who are avid readers of my blog may remember some of my struggles with Facebook: how it has grown and outgrown some of its original values, how distracting it can be (with, let's face it, some really terrible content), how organic reach slowly dwindled over time, how business owners became obsessed with their “number” and wanted to focus primarily on getting their page likes up, and so on.

However, here we are years later, and the one thing that continues to universally work for all of my clients? Facebook ads.

Why do I love them so? I’ve listed out my reasons into 3 main categories, and I'll also be doing a more thorough explanation on my Facebook LIVE video on February 6th, so make sure to tune in for specific examples and a Q&A opportunity.

Precision Targeting

When I studied marketing almost 15 years ago, the only options available for the most part were big budget, big business stuff. Think, billboards on the side of the freeway. The idea was to reach as many people as possible to try and reach the ones that mattered, or to influence the masses.

However now we can simply laser in on who our dream customer is, right from the get go. What a great use of ad dollars!

There are 3 different types of audiences you can make within your Facebook Ads Manager.

Saved audiences are those you create from scratch using Facebook's list of targeting options. These include things like demographic and psychographic characteristics, interests, behaviors, spending habits, and so much more. Examples: People who drive BMW, dog owner, mom of a toddler, job title realtor, and so forth. Basically you can try any combination of these things until you think you have qualified candidates to see your ads.

You also have the ability to make Custom or Retargeting audiences. This is really where my love for FB Ads shines. In addition to being able to track all actions on your website (website visitors, add-to-cart, leads, registrations, visits to specific web pages like "Contact Us," etc) you can also upload lists of people into an audience. So if you gathered email addresses at a recent event, and want to target those people with an ad in the future, you now have them in your assets manager. You can retarget people watching your videos all the way through, folks who engage with your posts, and lots of other good stuff.

Lastly, but certainly not of least importance, you have your Lookalike audiences. This is critical to finding people with similar interests, behaviors, spending habits, etc of those custom audiences you've already made. So, you can make a "Lookalike" audience of your Website Visitors audience, and Facebook will match similar people in that audience. Brilliant, right?

Custom (Retargeting) Audiences - Save all of your previous contacts, current customers, website visitors, those who have engaged with your business Instagram or Facebook pages, and so on.

Lookalike Audiences - Create audiences of brand new people with similarities to your custom audiences.

Total Control Over Your $ Money $
One the most AMAZING parts of marketing on Facebook for anyone, is there are no barriers to entry, budget-wise. And you control 100% of your money, all the time.

You decide → Over 12 kinds of ad objectives.

Change as you go → Ad not performing well? Try a new photo or a new audience.

No Commitment → Ad still not performing well? Turn it off. No waiting around and no need to blow through your whole budget just to find out something didn't work.

Secondary Ad Spend Cap → If you won’t be able to closely monitor your ads while they're running, set a lifetime spending cap for each campaign, so that ads will automatically shut off when that amount of money is reached. Think of it as a safety measure so that your ads don't go overboard.

Endless Creative Options
The third reason I love this kind of marketing is your endless ability to create ad copy and images that perfectly matches the audience you were trying to reach. Targeting moms? Use a photo that showcases motherhood. Speaking to people who have a job title of bartender? Call it out in the ad copy! Make people stop and resonate on your ad because it's so tailored for them.

Plus, with Facebook ads, A/B testing is a total breeze. Within the same ad set, you can try out multiple images, videos, headlines, ad copy iterations, and so on to identify the best performing combination of factors per audience. This means you can isolate the top performing ads, and turn off the rest, so your budget gets funneled to where you'll get the most for each and every ad dollar spent.

Right off the bat, you can see that the two ads above look similar, with only the main image as the alternate detail. When run against each other, it's likely that some audiences will prefer one over the other, in which case, if the primary objective of the campaign is to get clicks to your website, and one costs $0.67/click, and one costs $2.54/click, you'll get more clicks per every dollar spent by turning off the more expensive ad, and only keeping on the most cost efficient one.

So, there you have it! The 3 reasons I absolutely love working with Facebook Ads. I hope you try them out for your business, and if you have any questions, please bring them to my FB Live Webinar for your chance to ask!

Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year to you! 2017 was FULL of action around here. Looking back I almost can't believe so much was crammed into one year...

I had a baby

moved to LA for three months while my older daughter filmed a tv series

hired another team member and added 2 people to payroll

launched a course I'd been working on for 3 years

traveled to Boston, Portland ME, Louisiana, Portland OR, and Kauai

and then most recently, moved to Carlsbad and relocated my office!

Phew. I'm so ready for this new year, new traditions, and new possibilities.

My team is getting ready for our annual "working retreat" where we steal away for a weekend to the middle of nowhere to work on our internal systems and processes. Since I don't have a corporate background, and we all work remote, these things have to be developed, tested, and implemented by us regularly, as the business grows. This year I found a beautiful house in Joshua Tree...I've never been there so I'm really looking forward to it.

My new office is in a coworking space called CommonGrounds, and I finally had some time this weekend to do a little redesign in there. The space is SO different (but really neat!) and I wasn't able to use much from my last office, but trying to embrace change. New year, new you, right? Lol.

Here is the before and after...I think it turned out nicely!

2017 was my 10th year in business, and I had hoped to accomplish a big rebrand to celebrate, but I couldn't have squeezed in another thing.

It gives me something to look forward to in 2018 though!

What are you looking forward to this year the most? Comment below and let me know!

Thursday, October 19, 2017

I'm so excited to announce my new course, starting Monday. I've been working on it for about 2.5 years, and finally have perfected it so it will DELIVER.

Why Create Great Facebook Ads NOW?

#1. You want to streamline your money, and get straight to the people who matter.

You have a budget, and you want to use it wisely. Facebook gives you total control over your money, and let's YOU decide who sees your ad and when.

#2. You need to improve the results you're already getting.

You know you're close, but something's just not working. Let's work together to optimize your images, audiences, and budgets. Are you retargeting your email list? Using the pixel? Tracking "add to carts"? There are amazing things going on in Facebook that most people don't know how to leverage.

#3. You're READY to be a success story with Facebook

Maybe you're tired of hearing how everyone else is using Facebook, and you're ready to build YOUR own plan and start to see the rewards, and revenue, that can only be found by putting in the work.

Head over to www.creategreatads.comto get started! There is SO much more information on the course, how it works, what each week will cover, and so forth. Please get in touch if you have any questions!

Thursday, September 28, 2017

On your business page, you may need a variety of contributors. In order for an agency like us to manage your ads, publish posts, edit and analyze page performance, we require to be an "Admin." This is one of the many types of contributors you may choose to have on your page.

Here's a quick step-by-step guide to making someone an "Admin" on your page. *NOTE* The person you wish you have access your business account must first be a "Friend." Therefore, if you need to send a friend-request, please do that and confirm that the other person has accepted before you proceed. The other way to add them is through business manager, which in working with us, we require both, so we have multiple ways to access the page.

1. Log In To Facebook.
Go to www.Facebook.com and enter your login information at the top right corner. *Make sure that the account you're logging into has access to the business page as an "Admin" so that you will be able to access the correct account.*

2. Go To Business Page.
From your personal account, you will see a small triangular arrow on the top right of the page. Click that arrow, and select the business page you wish to access.

3. Go To Page Role Settings.
Now that you're looking at the correct business page, select "Settings" on the top right hand side of the page. You will now see a whole list of options appear. Select "Page Roles" from the "General Settings" menu on the left side of the page.

4. Assign a New Page Role.
Now you can type in the name of a person you wish to have access to your business page. For a full list of descriptions on what each page role can do, click here.

Now you're all set! It truly takes a village sometimes to get your business going. Thank your community for their efforts and happy posting!

Friday, April 28, 2017

{Since this is a common question we get when onboarding new clients, here are the step-by-step instructions for adding payment and admin roles to your ad account.}

When setting up a new ad account for the first time, you will need to add a form of payment (credit card, Paypal, debit card, etc.) before we / you can run your first ad.

Although Facebook's interface is sometimes less than intuitive, we have a picture-by-picture guide to make it real simple.

Step 1. Log In to Facebook.
Go to www.Facebook.com and enter your login information at the top right corner. *Make sure that the account you're logging into has access to the business page as an "Admin" so that you will be able to access the correct account.*

Step 2. Go To Ads Manager.
Once logged in, you will see a small triangular arrow on the top right of the page. Click that arrow, and then select either "Manage Ads" if you have ever run an ad before, OR "Create Ad" if you have never run an ad before.

Step 3. Select The Account
Once inside Ads Manager, select the account that needs payment info. If you have never run an ad before, you will likely incur a screen that looks like it's asking you to create an ad immediately. Just hit "Close" on the bottom left.

4. Go To Billing & Payment Settings.
From inside of the correct ad account, there will be a menu option on the top left of the page that says "Ads Manager." Click that button to open a whole host of other options, and then select "Billing and Payment Methods" over on the right side under "Settings."

5. Add Your Preferred Method of Payment
When you're done, hit save, and voila! Now we / you can begin running ads for your business.

Need to add a partner to your ads manager account? Here's how to do that.
- From your ads manager account, select the business page you wish to modify.
- Once inside the business account, select "Ads Manager" on the top left of the page to open a whole list of options.

- Select "All Tools" on the bottom right to see more options.
- Select "Ad Account Settings" and you will then see "Add a User"

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Well I quite literally stumbled upon a neat idea for Facebook audience targeting.

Have you ever wondered what your current customers or leads have in common? One of the things I pride myself on is my ability to try and get inside someone's head and figure out not just demographically, but psycho-graphically what they are into so we can target those interests and behaviors on Facebook. Sometimes we can find out by doing a survey, or sometimes we can make educated guesses.

As I was editing an ad set this week I discovered a good idea, that I thankfully found by sheer accidental observation.

How to take your custom email list/website visitors a step farther and take the guesswork out of targeting...

The other day I had a pre-existing ad set with some targeting in it: Health and Wellness Buyers + a few other things. I copied the ad set so I could change the targeting to the email list. I added the email list before removing the other targeting, and the estimated reach dropped WAY down to less than 1,000 people. Instantly I realized something.

The people who subscribe to this email list have NOTHING in common with the interests I had chosen for the other ad's targeting.

Then I realized something else. By cross referencing my assumptions with the client's email list or website visitors, I can figure out if the targeting I am trying is on point or not. (Obviously if you're branching out into new target markets this may not work.)

Yes, Facebook can do a look-alike audience of these people already. But what do I learn from that? What insight do we get? What control do I have?

This way, I can learn what similar interests or behaviors these people may or may not share and have more control ultimately, over the client's money. This is because Facebook ads are a bidding pool, so why lump every common interest and similarity into the look-alike if I can separate them out and see which one is the cheapest and most effective?

Side note... Facebook's Audience Insights tool is supposed to do this same thing but it really falls short on delivering.

Example:
With the email list we start out with 63,000 people.

When I add Weight Watchers it drops to 13,000. That's pretty good still.

When I add Gluten- Free Diet, it only drops to 37,000. That's even better.

When I add Juice Fast audience it drops to 2,300. That's kind of low. Not terrible, but low compared to the others. I would have thought our Juice Fasting people were really great targets, but in fact they are not sharing interests with the current tribe of people.

So, try this out! Have some fun. Enjoy the trial and error of Facebook ad targeting, with a little less error and a little more trial. ;)

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

One of the most common questions I get asked when I start working with a new client is, "I followed the instructions you sent, is my pixel working now?" and so I thought I'd write this super quick tip for anyone else wondering the same thing!

So, what is the pixel? It's a handy dandy little code unique to your ads manager that allows you to capture information from users who visit your website, and then re-target them on Facebook. It also can provide conversion data like when someone fills out a form, makes a purchase, and so forth. It's crucial for your re-targeting efforts AND for tracking purposes, to get that pixel working!

Now first things first, is the pixel even installed on the site? For that I recommend just going to the pixel section of your ads manager and right away you'll see data showing visits if it's working, or you'll see instructions to install it if it's not.

Pixel not installed yet

Pixel installed and tracking

You can also try using the pixel helper Chrome extension. Trust me, it's easy, so I'm not doing a tutorial on that.

But that doesn't really tell the whole story...The quick way I check to see if a pixel is working, is to navigate to the pixel area again, but look down at the actual events listed.

Then check to see if the event codes you installed are firing. If all you installed was the base code, you'll most likely just see "page view" and a number. (See photo below)

If you're trying to track other actions on your site, you'll see those listed too. One of the most common issues I see is every action/event has the same number. If every event has the same number, you have not installed the events correctly. In general, you should see something that tapers down. A large amount of page views, a lesser amount of add to carts, and an even smaller amount of purchases for example. Same thing for leads, registrations, or whatever event you're really looking to track.

You will also get data about what time the last action occurred, so this should match what you see on your website analytics.

Friday, January 13, 2017

I always thought I knew what being an adult would look like. I wasn’t
too focused on marriage, but it was always there in the back of my head
during and after college. Naturally, I saw a house in my future (a cute
one with all that curb appeal, of course) and when I would be pregnant,
I could see myself going to mommy yoga classes and baking banana bread.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t have career goals.
I studied global business marketing and kind of fell into my own
business right away. But that biological urge to have babies and let
someone else take care of me was probably just a little bit stronger.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Email marketing converts 3x more than social media on average. I love to use Facebook Ads and Email together to make things happen. This is just a quick HOW TO on where those email addresses go when you do a Lead Ad in Facebook.

Once you've run your campaign, it's very easy to grab your list of new emails and upload them into your Constant Contact account (or any other email program you may use). Let me show you how.

1. Head over to your business page, and select "Publishing Tools"

2. Look at the bottom of the menu to the left, and select "Lead Ads Forms"

3. A page will open up with any forms you have created. Select "download" for the lead form you wish to grab emails from. This will prompt a CSV download of the most recent contacts.

4. Head over to your constant contact account, and select contacts. Click "Add contacts" and then select "upload from file."

5. Then choose the file that you just downloaded from Facebook, and upload it. You will then be able to add these contacts to an existing list, or create a new one just for them.

Friday, October 28, 2016

There are many times when that blue boost button does actually come in handy. One of the best examples of this I have is when something needs to be shared with your fans only, and for a short period of time.

I've had three different clients in the past month alone, be up for some kind of award where community voting and participation is a must. In order to maximize the budget, I think it's best to make sure the people who already know you and care about you (and are likely to actually vote) have priority in seeing these messages.

When you hit BOOST, you can choose one day as the time limit. However it's never really just that day, it's 24 hours and it forces you to go out into the next day. That stretches your budget into a time when it won't be useful and you miss the chance to reach fans THAT day.

For example, "Last day to vote!" is something we just need to promote that day. When you choose the one day option, it bleeds into the following day where it's irrelevant. Here is the work-around to edit the promotion and make sure your money is being used on the right day.

Here is what you see when you boost a post for 1 day. I need the post shown on Oct 28th only. Of course, it's making me run through into Oct 29th.

Once you have boosted your post from your page...

Go to your ads manager and you will see the promoted post listed out as active.

Click INTO the campaign and you will see your ad set.

Hover over the pencil and hit "edit ad set"

Change the end date to the current day, end of day or night.

Hit save and you're good to go!

I hope that was helpful for those of you who have ever been frustrated by that issue!

Saturday, October 15, 2016

A huge thank you for this wonderful testimonial. I'm so glad you're in my community Sarita!

"I've had the pleasure of attending Tracy Petrucci's Constant Contact workshops, Social Media Lab and her Facebook Ads class. Tracy is brilliant at breaking down social media and marketing into manageable action items that any business person can implement. I especially appreciate her real-world experience, creative insights and never-ending patience with my persistent questions. Thanks to Tracy my social media went from fair to fabulous in a matter of months!”-Sarita Maybin, Professional Speaker, Author & Communication Expert

Monday, October 3, 2016

There is so much buzz about how to use Facebook ads; what works, what doesn't, "do this and don't do that"...the strong opinions go on and on. What enough people aren't telling you is this: There is absolutely no way to know how much your ads will cost, if they are going to work, and what "proven system" is sure to bring you x amount of ROI just because it did for someone else.

I am frequently reading forums and comments where people complain about things not working. When they describe what they did (or more often, didn't do) there's usually a few things right away I can pinpoint that would have helped.

There are many variables that make an ad successful or not, and this needs to be explained.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Let's get Back to Business! (School is back in session and we are
all returning from our vacations!) It's time to grow your contact list.

If you've been thinking about email marketing but don't have a list,
or want to grow your current list, join us for "30 Ways to Grow Your
List" webinar - you'll leave with ideas and strategies to capture new
contacts, grow your list and take action to help move your business
forward. Having an interested and qualified list of contacts that you
can stay top of mind with is vital to every business. Continuing to grow
that list is just as important. In this workshop we will show you 30
easy ways to grow your contact list today!

We will cover:
• Why someone should join your contact list and what’s in it for them
• How to ask people to join your list "face-to-face"
• How to use social media to grow your list
• How to grow your list on your website or blog
• How to use print material to get people to sign up
• How to use events to help grow your list
• How to use incentives and giveaways to grow your list

Thursday, August 25, 2016

When my life is at its end, hopefully I'll be old, grey, and ready for it. Who will be around me? What will I want to tell them? Will I have any regrets?

Recently I went through a really unique experience provided by one of my colleagues from Hera Hub, De'Anna Nunez. We called it my "dream scene" and it was something I wish everyone could do!

Now I'm going to keep this short, but at the bottom I added some on for those who are interested to see more detail. Plus, I felt motivated to write this down so it doesn't fade away with time, and why not share it with you as well?